Random Language Facts
What is the term for an artificially constructed language?
A conlang.
What city is known for their bat-like vigilante and high crime rates?
Gotham city (duh)
What is the term for a stylized picture of an object representing a word, syllable, or sound, as found in ancient Egyptian writing systems?
Hieroglyphics
Who conducted the "Fourth Floor" study in New York City in the 1960's?
William Labov
Approximately how many languages in the world are there?
around 7,000
What are the primary four languages spoken in Switzerland?
French, German, Italian, Romansch.
What event occurred in Boston on January 15th, 1919, caused by a tank explosion?
The Great Molasses Flood.
What is the name for the alphabet used by the languages Serbian, Russian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian in written form?
Cyrillic script
What is the word used for the dialect of English used historically by working class people in London?
Cockney
What is the world's largest and most geographically dispersed language family, containing over 1,200 languages spoken across Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and Oceania?
The Austronesian language family.
What is the term for the type of language where morphemes (meaningful word parts) are joined together, forming a single word that conveys a complex idea?
Agglutinative languages, such as Turkish, Finnish, Hungarian, and Korean.
What is a stringed musical instrument characterized by its four to six strings stretched over a round head made of plastic or animal skin. It has roots tracing back to sub-Saharan Africa.
The banjo.
What is the most common letter used in the English Alphabet?
Ee
What word refers to the degree of formality or the specific language style used in a particular communicative situation?
Register
What is a language isolate? Bonus points if you can name one!
A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Examples: Basque, Ainu, Burushaski, Sandawe, Haida, Zuni, Kanoê, Tiwi
Language attrition is the process of decreasing proficiency in or losing a language.
Which country was listed on Airbnb in 2011 for a price of 70,000 USD per night?
Liechtenstein!
What is the name for the wedge-shaped characters used in the ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia and surviving mainly impressed on clay tablets?
Cuneiform.
What is the term for a dialect of English that does not use r in postvocalic position?
Non-rhotic dialect, in which r is pronounced in prevocalic position only, common in eastern New England, New York City, and Britain.
What language family is known for their click consonants?
Khoisan language family, particularly the Khoe languages, and some neighboring Bantu languages that borrowed them.
What is ergative-absolutive morphosyntactic alignment? Bonus points if you name one language that behaves this way!
In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the subject of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the subject of a transitive verb. Examples include Basque, Georgian, Mayan, Tibetan, and Sumerian.
What is Sonic the Hedgehog's real name?
Sonic Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog (debated)
What is a writing system in which only consonants are represented by letter signs, while vowel sounds are primarily inferred by the reader?
An abjad.
Where two separate languages are used for different functions in a community, especially where one is used for high (H) or more formal functions and the other for low (L) or informal functions.
Diglossia.
Where is Manx spoken and what are its sister languages?